Synopsis

Necromanticism is a book about literary tourism—readers' compulsion to visit homes, landscapes, and (especially) graves—in the long Romantic period. With textured case studies involving a range of authors, from William Godwin to Felicia Hemans and Walter Scott, this study describes literary tourism as an essentially Romantic invention, closely tied with what people in the Romantic era felt it meant to read and write. At the same time, it unfolds tourism's importance to Romanticism's canon-making practices, both national and transatlantic. Contributing a fresh understanding of Romantic literary texts in the context of death-studies and travel history, Necromanticism highlights a complex of book-love and memorial ritual that has deeply influenced Anglophone literary culture, both in Britain and in the United States.